Anderson County had 20 homicides in 2012

Anderson County Coroner Greg Shore, left, helped Anderson County Sheriffs Office members carry a barrel that was found in Hartwell Lake in November containing a mans body.

Anderson Independent Mail

ANDERSON COUNTY - It was a gruesome year for law enforcement officials in Anderson County, as two suspects were charged with murder in cases involving dismemberment.

There were 20 homicides in the county in 2012, six of which never led to an arrest. One of those six was an officer-involved shooting for which the officer was cleared of wrongdoing, although it is still classified as a homicide because someone's life was taken.

Tony Lamar McGinnis, 53

Andrea Kelli Mitchell, 37

Marcus Bryan Edwards, 34

Michael Jones, 28

Timothy Joel Ramsey, 25

Bertha Beasley, 80

Paul Leatherwood, 47

James Davenport, 67

Nathan Robinson, 30

Joe Spencer Laughlin, 50

Chandrakant "C.J." Patel, 52

Kameron Lashun Morris, 21

Emani Puckett, 17

Alvin Johnson, 46

Lonnell Hailey, 33

Kendrick McDowell, 22

Antonio Jamauldin Adger, 21

Claud Schaffer Scott, 76

Seth Barton Foster, 53

Redmond Raheem Donald, 20

The people arrested and charged with the various killings — ranging from an Anderson businessman who was tortured before being killed and a homeowner shot in a home invasion to drug-related slayings and alcohol-fueled stabbings — are facing charges. But they have not pleaded guilty or appeared at trials.

Some of the killings were so brutal that the details became national news, as bodies were discovered, in separate incidents, in barrels in Hartwell Lake and in the crawl space of an unoccupied downtown Anderson building.

"I think it's fair to say that some people out there get these warped ideas from TV and movies," said Chad McBride, Anderson County Sheriff's Office spokesman. "The reality is that these are very real victims. It hurts very real families, and people end up serving real jail time for these acts."

Family members of homicide victims got together in November, as happens each year, to mourn the losses and celebrate the future as they solemnly lit candles.

Anderson County Coroner Greg Shore investigates many of the homicides.

He, along with many law enforcement officers, said most of the cases involve drugs or some sort of criminal activity.

Methamphetamine was a factor in many of the cases, while other criminal activity played a role in others, McBride said.

"I think a lot of the murders we see are the result of someone being involved in some other, earlier, criminal activity," he said. "Of course, there are domestic shootings and abuse cases, but most of the murders involved some kind of criminal activity. Some victims are completely innocent. But it is very important, especially now, to teach our children and reach our young people. It's hard to talk to them, but being involved in these kinds of activities and running in these kinds of crowds can get someone killed."

The number of homicides were not out of the ordinary, with more in the city of Anderson than in 2011 but fewer than in 2010. After a spike in homicides in 2008 (14) and a lull in 2010 (six, two of which were law enforcement-involved shootings and one was a self-defense case), Anderson County sheriff's deputies had an average number of homicides at 11 in 2012.

City officers dealt with six homicides. Honea Path and Iva departments handled one homicide each along with the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, which investigated a shooting involving an Anderson city officer who was cleared of any wrongdoing.

A fatal accident at the Anderson Jockey Lot, where the son of the owner and co-founder of the flea market was struck and killed by a car, could later be classified as a homicide, but no charges have been filed.

Redmond "Redd" Donald was the first homicide victim of the year in the county. He was shot as he was running to a home he had helped build through Habitat for Humanity.

Four people have been arrested for involvement in his killing, including DeAngelo Sanchez Gantt, 17, charged with murder. The others face charges of being an accessory to murder.

The next homicide made international news, with the discovery of a homeless man, Seth Barton Foster, 53, whose hands, feet and head had been chopped off.

Investigators, tipped off by the smell, found Foster's body in mid-February.

His torso was found under a downtown Anderson building. Much of the rest of his body would be discovered near another building.

A homeless man, Leslie Warren Sandoval, 45, is charged with the killing of Foster, a fellow homeless man.

Sandoval remains at the Anderson County Detention Center and is charged with murder and possession of a weapon.

As the year came to a close, another set of investigators acting on a tip found first one and then a second barrel in Hartwell Lake. Each barrel contained the body of someone who had been killed as the result of a blow to the head.

The legs and body Andrea Mitchell, 37, were folded into a plastic barrel, according to a coroner's report. Investigators believe she was killed by her emergency contact, John Michael Young, who picked her up from the Anderson County Detention Center the day before she was killed.

Tony McGinnis, 53, was cut into pieces before being placed into a metal barrel.

Young, 36, is charged with murder in the deaths of McGinnis and Mitchell plus a count of unlawful moving of a dead body and a weapons offense.

Young appeared at a preliminary court date in early December, where a judge sent most of his charges, including both counts of murder, to a grand jury while dismissing a drug offense.

Another homicide began with the kidnapping of an Anderson businessman, Chandrakant "C.J." Patel.

The four people charged in Patel's death appeared in court in early November. Investigators at that hearing said Patel went to a home to pay for sex and was bound in a bedroom where he was tortured before being taken to a place near the Georgia border, where he was killed with a bullet to the head.

The four people took from Patel $70 and some unusable credit cards they couldn't get to work, investigator Danny Barton testified.

The woman Patel went to visit, Kyndra Howell, 22, took $30 of the money, Barton said.

Jeremiah Johnson, 29, took the rest. The other two men, 18-year-old Zachary Gantt and 22-year-old Ezra Williams, left with none of Patel's money, Barton testified.

All four are charged with murder, kidnapping, armed robbery and weapon possession and remain at the County Detention Center.

Guns claimed the lives of most homicide victims, 13 of the 20.

Shore, the coroner, said that drugs, specifically meth and prescriptions, are what he sees as the big problem and most easily explain what led to a large percentage of the homicides he sees each year.

"You can't easily get off them (the drugs); it's an addiction," he said. "Fixing that problem is what we have to do."